


any semblance of touch

by anarchetypal



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA AU, Ecstasy - Freeform, Fake AH Crew, Frottage, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, feelings on the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 11:46:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7221118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchetypal/pseuds/anarchetypal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“X-Ray,” Gavin says cheerfully, except he’s shouting a bit, too loud over the music in a more isolated part of the club away from the speakers.</p><p>“What do you want?” Ray demands, exasperated, wishing he wasn’t smiling.</p><p>“<i>You</i>, you dope,” Gavin says. He’s got Ray half pinned against the wall, still dancing a little despite their awkward position, like his body can’t help but move.</p><p>“Oh, you want me?” Ray deadpans, throwing out the innuendo out of nothing but pure habit at this point.</p><p>And Gavin is—very close, body heat sinking through Ray’s clothes, lighting him on fire. His mouth is open slightly, lips flushed and full. “Well,” he says, annoyingly candid. “Yeah.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	any semblance of touch

**Author's Note:**

> aka that gta rayvin ecstasy fic inspired by and for firstnameagent

The way it kicks off—the way Ray remembers it—is they’re all sitting around a table covered in papers and maps and laptops while Jack goes over the final plan for another heist involving ridiculous schemes and vehicle acrobatics and comparably paltry takes.

And Ray is—Ray is _paying attention_ , okay, he is, it’s just that sometimes for him paying attention looks like staring at a blank spot on the wall and fiddling with a Capri Sun juice pouch. The juice is partially to make Geoff roll his eyes, partially because he’s actually thirsty, but mostly for the opportunity to chew on the plastic straw like he finally bought himself a middle name and it’s Oral Fixation.

“So then Ryan and Michael take the truck with the molly down to the warehouse in Blaine County,” Jack finishes, tracing a route in obnoxiously orange Sharpie along one of the maps.

Everybody’s nodding, except for Ryan, who has the lost, wide-eyed expression of a newborn deer. “Who’s Molly?” he asks blankly, and Ray snorts Capri Sun up his nose and chokes, eyes streaming, as he laughs.

“Ryan,” he says, gasping and wiping at his eyes, heedless of the way Ryan’s glowering hopefully only half seriously at him. “ _Dude_. Come to my place with ten bucks and I’ll introduce you to her.”

He’s rewarded with an annoyed, embarrassed huff of air from Ryan when Michael stage-whispers _It’s a drug thing_ and laughter from everybody else, and he’s too focused on that to really pay attention to the way Gavin is watching him, thoughtful and intent.

——

It doesn’t come to a head until maybe a week has passed, until the heat from the heist has about died out and Ray’s sitting pretty on a neat little take that isn’t quite as paltry as he’d expected it to be.

He’s doing what he usually does after a heist and the celebrating is done, which is letting the residual adrenaline seep from his bones and hiding out at his second apartment/safe house even though there’s no real heat on him anymore.

The place is small but not cramped, few pieces of furniture and fewer possessions in the closet (because a safe house needs to be _easily packed up and flammable as fuck_ , Michael told him once, and Michael doesn’t give advice often). He hauled his Xbox over when he tossed some clothes and part of his take in a bag that smelled like gasoline and paint thinner and made his way across town to hermit the fuck up for a few days, and that’s what he spends his time doing, mostly: playing games over and over till his brains leak out his ears and drop through the floorboards.

He doesn’t remember giving Gavin the address, which doesn’t really matter; Gavin can track down basically anybody, and he’s twice as good at it when nature’s calling him to annoy someone.

Ray doesn’t quite jerk in surprise when knocking punches through the white noise of video game music drifting from his shitty speakers, but his fingers tighten hard on the controller in his hands and make the plastic creak.

And here’s the thing: despite the normal bullshit workplace hazards, Ray isn’t Ryan—he’s not paranoid, doesn’t triple lock his doors and walk through his house with seven knives strapped to his extremities. There’s no paranoia crawling up through his skin, but it’s close. It’s pressing against his front door. Tearing at his welcome mat.

Paranoia comes closer when he’s ambushed at night, when he walks into a room that should be empty but isn’t, when he’s ratted out and followed and watched and he isn’t Joel, doesn’t have a dozen and a half contingency plans for his contingency plans, but the insistent pounding at his door makes him look sharply at the window and think about how far it is from the ground.

“Ray?” comes Gavin’s voice, and Ray’s breath leaves him in a rush, half relief, half sigh. He’s not ready for human interaction, definitely not ready for _Gavin_ interaction, but now that Gavin’s physically here he’s not likely to go anywhere.

“Ray’s not here,” he shouts anyway, willing to try to out-stubborn Gavin or at least make him stand in the hall awkwardly a little while longer. “Leave a message after the tone!”

“Ray,” Gavin starts, exasperated, voice muted through the door. “Mate—”

“ _Beep_ , motherfucker,” Ray interrupts, tipping his head back and hollering at the ceiling in self-indulgence of being an asshole.

“I have pizza,” Gavin replies, voice cajoling in a way that should annoy Ray more than it does.

He considers it. “That works,” he says agreeably, hauling himself up off the couch and going to let Gavin in. Maybe he should’ve picked up on Gavin’s mood from the way he didn’t just skip formalities and pick the lock.

Predictably, there’s no pizza. Ray flips Gavin off with no real heat, lets the door hang open as he returns to the nest of slightly musty blankets he’d gathered on the couch.

“Halo?” Gavin asks hopefully, joining him on the couch and putting his feet up on the questionably-stable coffee table like he isn’t invading Ray’s sweet, sweet hermit time.

“Fuck you, GoldenEye,” Ray says, shooting him down, but he hands Gavin a controller and doesn’t look at Gavin’s undoubtedly smug face at the fact that he even bothered to bring a second controller with him.

Gavin’s even worse than usual, can’t sit still and gets killed off again and again. He doesn’t even bother to protest, which is enough to get Ray’s attention. Ray’s ready to snap halfheartedly at him around the tenth time he’s killed effortlessly when a crumpled tenner lands in his lap.

He stares down at it. Usually Gavin’s money is crisp, barely folded from being held in his wallet, but this bill looks like Gavin’s been worrying at it with his fingers.

“You’re gonna need more than this to get me to blow you.”

Gavin flushes faintly. It’s not very satisfying. “No, I— Molly,” he says, stilted and awkward.

Ray stares. “ _Ray_ ,” he corrects, pointing at himself, voice slow like he’s talking to a kid.

Gavin pulls a face. “No— C’mon, Ray,” he says, whining a little. “You told Ryan you’d give him some. For ten dollars.”

It takes a second for Ray to dredge up the memory. He blinks, thrown off. “What— Dude, I was just fucking around,” he says, waiting for Gavin to break into a smile, to laugh it off.

That doesn’t happen. “So you don’t have any?” Gavin asks, nose scrunching.

“You want me to sell you _ecstasy?”_

“Yes!” Gavin says, shoulders hunching defensively. “Unless you don’t have any—”

“I _have_ some, I just don’t know why the fuck you _want_ it. Since when do you get high?”

“I get high!” Gavin says, voice pitching up.

“You toked from a joint of mine once because you thought it was a _cigarette_ —”

“Are you gonna sell it to me or not?!”

“Oh my god,” Ray says, tossing his controller down, trying to bail the hell out of the conversation as fast as he can. “Fine, yeah, whatever, how many caps do you want?”

Gavin gives him a bewildered look.

“How many— Fuck it, okay, just let me— Put that shit away, dude, I don’t want your cash,” Ray says, getting to his feet and disappearing into the bedroom.

“I can pay for it,” Gavin calls after him.

Ray returns after rummaging through his closet, a tiny Ziploc baggie pinched between two fingers. “Yeah, I _know_ you can pay for it,” he says, sitting down heavily, jostling Gavin next to him. “I don’t want some sweaty tenner you’ve been keeping next to your balls.”

“I _haven’t_ ,” Gavin starts, only to fall silent when Ray tips out a couple of caps from the bag. The pills roll a little across the coffee table.

“How many?” Ray questions him again, only to be met with the same uncertain look. “You’ve never taken molly before,” he says flatly.

Gavin opens his mouth, expression mulish.

“Don’t fucking lie to me right now, man,” Ray cuts in, voice maybe a little sharp despite himself. “I don’t want you taking more than you can handle.”

“Never,” Gavin admits, rubbing the back of his neck.

Ray isn’t usually nosy, but he can’t help himself—he’s curious. “What’s got you wanting to try all of a sudden?”

Gavin scrunches his nose. Hesitates. Eventually shrugs. “Bloke at the club ‘bout a fortnight ago was real dopey and touchy,” he says finally. “Looked like… Looked like he was the happiest he’s ever been in his life.” He pauses. “I wanted to know what it was like.”

And that’s— That’s fair. Ecstasy’s good. Not the best; it’s never made everything bad melt away for Ray like heroin, never made him want more so bad it scared him, but it’s good.

“You can try a cap,” he says. He bats Gavin’s hand away when he immediately reaches to grab one. “Not by yourself. Don’t take it and run. You gonna do it, do it here so I can make sure you don’t try to fuck a brick wall or something.”

Gavin looks a little petulant. Ray ignores him and gets up to grab the last crinkled bottle of water from the back of his fridge. Never let it be said he isn’t a responsible fucking enabler.

“You’re not taking it with me?” Gavin asks, taking the bottle when Ray passes it over to him and sits back down.

“What? Nah. Gotta watch your ass.” Not that he’d have trouble keeping Gavin from running off even while rolling, but. He wants to be metaphorically watching Gavin’s ass, not literally, so. Sober party for Ray.

“Aw, Ray.” Gavin pulls an obnoxiously insincere pleading expression and gets in his face.

“No. What is that face. Get away from me.”

“Ray. X-Ray. _X-Ray_ ,” Gavin coos, leaning against him heavily, still playing up the puppy-dog eyes.

Ray is such a fucking sucker. “Fine,” he says, and he’s _not_ laughing; he shoves at Gavin and doesn’t manage to push him very far away.

But he gets a wide, genuine smile from Gavin, and he takes it. That’s enough.

And, fuck it, that’s the way it’s always been: Ray takes whatever he can get his hands on, like he was a kid who grew up with nothing. And Gavin gets whatever he wants, like he was a kid who grew up with everything.

He makes Gavin take the pill with a few generous swallows of water, then follows suit, feeling the cap lift off his tongue and disappear down his throat with the water. He shuts his eyes, waiting-not-waiting for the immediate rush he gets from H that won’t come with molly, and eventually sets the bottle down on the coffee table.

Gavin’s already bouncing where he’s sat. “How long does it take?” he demands, impatient as he is about anything, about everything.

Ray rolls his eyes. “Half an hour, an hour? Depends on what you’ve had to eat recently.”

Gavin groans, the perfect image of unnecessary drama, and tries to splay out against Ray, knock him down on the couch. “That’s ages from now.”

“That’s literally like sixty minutes.”

“ _Ages_ ,” Gavin repeats.

“Get off, oh my god, what are you, four?”

They eventually go back to GoldenEye to kill time waiting for the molly to kick in. Gavin’s marginally better now, smug because he’s gotten what he wants, and so Ray kills him with all the more indiscretion and zero pity for the way Gavin sulks about it.

It’s been awhile since he’s had molly, not one for clubs or for uppers very often. He prefers downers, less likely to give him headaches and drawn to the slow, happy, chilled out mind-wipe of them, but he thinks it makes sense that Gavin wants to try something more lively. There’s a part of him that wonders what Gavin would be like on coke, except the answer is probably ‘terrifying’ and he’s not interested in bailing Gavin out of jail (again) so, no.

But Gavin’s a live wire, energy drink blood and matchstick bones, and so of course he wants to fly, wants the party-enhancers, wants to feel everything _more_ and _harder_.

Ray wants to get happy; Gavin wants to get off the ground.

Ecstasy’s got more of a sly come-up than heroin. It builds like a spilling warmth from the back of Ray’s head and crawls all over his brain, makes a nest there, spreads the heat down his body and hums in the tips of his fingers. His thumbs slow on the sticks of the controller.

On-screen, he kills Gavin again, then turns to look at him. “Hey. How’re you feeling?”

Gavin’s totally abandoned his controller. His hands are flat against the couch cushions, fingers sinking into the plush seat. “Mm,” he says, which says absolutely nothing, but when he lets his head loll to the side, his eyes are dark and open. He’s smiling.

“Yeah?” Ray responds, like Gavin actually answered. “You rolling?”

“That’s a _lovely_ term for it,” Gavin announces. He’s sliding down the couch somewhat, shifting minutely in his clothes.

Ray wants to do the same thing, if he’s honest. It’s not building quite as fast for him, but every touch feels good, makes him want to reach out, roll his body against the couch, against Gavin, against anything.

Instead, he smiles a little and smacks Gavin gently with a couch pillow before reaching to turn off the game.

“X-Ray,” Gavin says, plaintive.

“Vav,” Ray returns dutifully.

“You know where I want to go? Know where would be absolutely top to go right now?”

“If you say a club, I’m gonna make you sit out in the hallway rolling on molly for the next three hours.”

Gavin gives him those same fucking puppy-dog eyes.

When did Ray become such a goddamn pushover?

——

They get a taxi to the club because Ray doesn’t feel like walking or explaining to Jack why he drove into a street pole on ecstasy (again).

He’d be worried about getting turned away at the door looking like—fuck it, analogies are hard. Looking like he does: wearing clothes wrinkled to hell with no discernible sense of style besides “I spend my Friday nights alone on my couch playing Xbox.”

But Gavin looks classy, or at least like he pulled an outfit from the closet like he meant it, and Gavin could charm his way into the most classified room in the White House so Ray’s not too concerned. He gets an eyebrow raise from the bouncer, but Gavin talks the guy in circles with a sweet smile and they’re in, music washing over him like a physical thing.

Gavin breaks away from him before he even manages to scope the place out, which is—fine, it’s fine, it’s whatever; Ray knows he isn’t exactly the best club partner, naturally drifting away from the crowd and closing himself off in his hoodie and with his body language.

Still, the molly makes him want to touch, to feel, and so maybe he misses the warmth of Gavin’s body a little when it leaves him, whatever, fucking prosecute him about it. In a corner of the club, he leans against the wall and scratches his fingers through his hair, enjoys the tingling heat spreading across his scalp.

Every touch feels incredible. He’d welcome anything. A hit to the face, open-handed. A blunt object to the back, pain flashing like police lights and echoing, _feel this, feel something, feel anything_.

A fucking bullet to the chest.

But the music is good, really gets him rolling and shifting in his clothes, little tendrils of warmth and pleasure wrapping around him and spreading anywhere his body makes contact with something.

He’s still trying to keep his eyes on Gavin, because the last thing they need is Gavin getting his ass kicked for dancing on the wrong person. He watches the feathered top of Gavin’s hair and gold flashings of his jewelry flit around the club from person to person for a bit until the high really settles in and makes him shut his eyes with a sigh, just feeling the music thrum through him.

He’s startled back into reality by somebody crowding him up against the wall, a briefly unidentified hurricane of white teeth and expensive cologne.

“Gavin— _Dude_ ,” Ray huffs, trying to get out from under Gavin’s weird hug/body-osmosis-through-sheer-will thing he’s trying to do. Every point of contact is like a spreading electric flame sweeping up his skin.

“X-Ray,” Gavin says cheerfully, except he’s shouting a bit, too loud over the music in a more isolated part of the club away from the speakers.

“What do you want?” Ray demands, exasperated, wishing he wasn’t smiling.

“ _You_ , you dope,” Gavin says. He’s got Ray half pinned against the wall, still dancing a little despite their awkward position, like his body can’t help but move.

“Oh, you want me?” Ray deadpans, throwing out the innuendo out of nothing but pure habit at this point.

And Gavin is—very close, body heat sinking through Ray’s clothes, lighting him on fire. His mouth is open slightly, lips flushed and full. “Well,” he says, annoyingly candid. “Yeah.”

And the thing is—fuck, they’ve made out before, whatever; Gavin is effortlessly affectionate and Ray is easygoing, and so maybe they’ve done shit high school prom style, necking in secluded areas with one or both of them high or drunk and _whatever_ , that’s fine, shit happens, but this—

Okay, maybe this is par for the course.

“Yeah,” Ray echoes finally, the word tumbling out in a rush of air as he finally lets his body rock to meet Gavin’s. “Yeah, okay.”

From there the rhythm comes almost naturally, a give-and-take of their bodies moving together; he’s surprised by the intensity with which Gavin seeks out his pleasure, chasing waves of the high as he grabs Ray by the belt loops and pulls him close, pinned between Gavin’s body and the wall, a million points of contact.

But Ray gives as good as he gets, lets his hands wander, and maybe it’s a little unfair.

“ _Christ_ ,” Gavin gasps out, but he’s smiling beatifically. He squirms when Ray manages to get a hand under the waistband of his stupidly tight jeans, grabs at him with the other hand through two layers just to feel Gavin’s breath puff out in startled arousal against his neck.

Gavin presses a thigh up between his legs and swings his hips hard enough to push Ray back up against the wall, and he shudders and nearly bites through his fucking lip, eyes fluttering shut for a second.

“Okay— _Okay_ , asshole,” he chokes out, and Gavin’s laughing, delighted. What a pretty fucking picture.

And, alright, maybe they’re a little deviant, maybe Gavin’s given roadhead at two hundred miles an hour and Ray’s fucked against the railings at the top of the highest building in the city, but he’s not really expecting them both to end up making a mess of their jeans in a seedy club high on ecstasy.

But since that’s what happens, maybe inevitably, they push into the bathroom to clean themselves up as best they can and then tumble out onto the street at one in the morning, rumpled and laughing and invincible as anything in Los Santos.

They’re still riding the high, not quite as peaked as before but still good, so they lean on each other and Ray feels warm static rush over his scalp when a breeze from the ocean ruffles his hair.

Gavin’s goddamn pretty in the shitty lighting from half burned out street lamps, eyes half masted, leaning against Ray with too much of his weight but not caring, trusting Ray not to let him fall.

“Hey,” he says.

Gavin hums in response, turning an ear towards him.

“You wanna go to the beach?” Ray asks. There salt in the air, and the shore is awful during the day, too many tourists and too much sun, but it’d be bearable now. Nice, even.

Gavin scrunches his nose, glances up and down the street. “We’d need to get a cab,” he starts, god forbid the princess have to walk a few blocks, but Ray’s already tugging him into a fancy beachside apartment complex.

The lock on the gate opens almost laughably easily. “What color Faggio do you want?” he asks, giving a sweeping gesture to a few scooters bought up and never used by assholes with too much money.

Gavin laughs. “Ray!” he exclaims, batting his eyelashes like Ray’s presented him with flowers and chocolate liqueur. “ _Cheeky_ Ray, yes, this is _excellent_.”

A light in one of the apartments comes on as Ray starts one of the scooters ( _The purple one_ , Gavin had decided, which, hell fucking yes), and there’s muffled shouting as Gavin clambers on the back awkwardly and they take off at a sound-barrier-breaking thirty miles an hour.

This is exactly what he wants out of life: stupid nighttime adventures with a friend he likes to fool around with, the city open and inviting a million opportunities and they’ll only ever take the ones that are loopholes.

They bypass the lights on Del Perro Pier, head down below the boardwalk until the Faggio gives up in the sand and walk down to the shore arm in arm, scare off some partying teenagers with their high tactility and laughter at nothing.

It’s not long before the ocean becomes too enticing, so they end up kicking off their shoes and squirming out of their jeans and pulling their shirts off over their heads. Ray wonders what they must look like, a couple of skinny, high assholes nearly naked in the ocean in the middle of the night.

The water feels _incredible_ , and Ray sinks his toes into the wet sand and lets the molly do its thing, rolling over and over like the waves until he can’t help but grab Gavin as he wades past and kiss him filthy there in the sea.

They shiver when they eventually stumble back onto the beach, boxers stiffening with salt as they dry and hair plastered down to their heads.

Gavin charms a vendor closing up shop on the boardwalk into giving them a funnel cake, and they end up sitting on the sand next to their clothes, powdered sugar falling from the fried dough and clinging to anywhere their skin is still wet. They trade saccharine kisses as the tide comes in.

Ray remembers Gavin finding him at the penthouse after a heist maybe a month or so back, after the celebrating, the drinking, the money being counted. He sat down on the balcony with Ray and they let their legs hang over the side through the railing, staring down at the city.

And Gavin—drunk on top shelf booze and adrenaline and invincibility—leaned against Ray and whispered that this was their heyday. That they were at the top of their game.

Ray had laughed. _Yeah? So what’s that mean for us later?_

Gavin just smiled like he was holding everybody’s secrets and buried his face in Ray’s neck.

Now, on the beach, sticky with sugar and salt and humming through the comedown of the high, Ray thinks he feels it. The heyday. The peak. He feels powerful, like he could do anything, be anyone, as long as he’s got Gavin, got the crew.

He wants to take all the money to find the meaning of it. Wants to raze the whole city to find the beauty in it.

And what that means for them later—god, who cares? He’ll take what he can get now and keep it till he kicks it.

“So,” he says, nudging Gavin with his foot, voice thick through the last bite of funnel cake. “Final review for the molly?”

“Oh, top,” Gavin says immediately, grinning like the sun won’t come up for years. “But—”

“But?” Ray echoes suspiciously.

“Well, I just— I was thinking, honestly, it really just makes me want to try cocaine.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you do the tumblr thing, i've got a writing/inspiration blog here: http://anarchetypal.tumblr.com/


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